


When the World Was Stained Red

by Adaven



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Colors, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Lucifer Feels, Lucifer cant see colors without Chloe, Lucifer childhood, Tumblr Prompt, color study
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 17:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18015182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adaven/pseuds/Adaven
Summary: Lucifer Morningstar made the stars, giving the Universe color and passion. Yet after the Fall, he can no longer see what he made, his world forever grey. Until he meets Chloe Decker. His mortality is not the only part of his world she changes.Based off a prompt on Tumblr from user princess-dead-winchester-of-hell and found via luciferprompts.





	When the World Was Stained Red

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't really know why but I saw this prompt and it just called to me. I don't know if this is what was expected to come from this idea, I just went with the flow. This will be a 2-shot. I hope y'all enjoy, I'd love to know what you think!

In the beginning...it was dark.

Not in Heaven, of course. The Silver City glowed with glorious light, as blinding and beautiful as it was pure. A harsh dichotomy with the endless void few dared look into.

But there were those who did. God for one and the other a young angel. They looked into the void and unlike all others who saw nothingness, they saw what could be. 

One saw life, bright souls he knew would be stained from the start but held such potential his very being ached to see them into creation.

The other had no such foreknowledge, no idea what his Father’s creation would do to him. All he saw was a space that seemed lonely and he wished to see such a terrible thing rectified. For he was the youngest of the Archangels and he knew nothing but the innocence of youth.

His Father worked tirelessly, wrangling and shaping the vast void. It was nothing and in its nothingness, it had a feeling, nowhere even remotely similar to an Angel or a God but distinct and brimming with the possibility of no longer being nothing. So his Father worked and his Mother scoffed and his siblings all laughed when he said he could feel it. To all the Angels it would remain nothing until their Father said otherwise. But each time he looked over the shining walls he couldn’t help the echo of loneliness the void seemed to call him with.

(Not that he knew the name for such a feeling, nor would he know for quite some time. And by then it would be his eternal companion.)

He’d been told to stay away by everyone. They were scared, though again he did not understand such a feeling. To them, the void was nothing and if they went to it against their Father’s will perhaps they too would be taken by it. None could stand the thought of losing him for he was the youngest and brightest and most beautiful of all Angels. He started the Heavenly Choir, filling their home with music. His wings scattered the pure, gleaming light of the City and gave it color. 

He was life and joy and made with a touch of everything good that God had seen in the void. 

Not that anyone was aware of this and his Father certainly never explained anything. 

So he found himself at the wall quite often, despite what all the others feared. He knew his Father tinkered with the space, tried to make something out of nothing, and he knew he should not interfere. But the void called to him and reminded him of when his elder sibling’s wings would droop. Their head would fall and they would say they did not wish to be bothered. He’d never found this to actually be the case though, for they always laughed and smiled when he went and bothered them. 

At least the emptiness could not lie to him.

He did not know how to make the void laugh and smile or if it even could, but he knew enough to know sometimes all his siblings really needed was for someone to be there. Despite not fearing the nothingness, he did not wish to anger his family by slipping into the void. So he took his left wing in hand and plucked a downy feather from the middle. He winced and cried out, feeling for the first time pain. With trembling fingers and a gentle breath, he released the feather out into nothing, tears welling up in his eyes.

His siblings heard and their panic alerted their Mother and Father. They found him sitting on the wall, holding his wing close and crying, the first Angel to ever do so. His cries tinged the eternal music he had started and dulled the light coming from his wings.

It was not his siblings or parents who stopped his newfound pain. There, under witness of those who’d tried to force it into something, the nothing willingly vanished. It felt the kindred pain and wished to ease it. So the void took the feather and mirrored what it’d seen in him.

The light of the first star burned with all the intensity of Heaven, for at its center lay divinity, but it did not glow the same cold, pure light. It took all the colors he’d painted across the Silver City and cast them out into the void. 

First it started with red, a hot and violent light for his pain.

Then came orange and yellow, a determination not to hurt him and instead bring him joy.

Green and blue brought harmony back to the choir and assuaged the pain he felt.

Last came indigo and violet, showing him its sincerity and devotion.

The first star was not for God or Goddess or the Heavenly Host. It was nothing’s gift to the one who’d noticed it was alone and had tried to keep it company. It was its promise to a friend.

With the first star created, the rest of his Father’s vision was easy to create. He helped where he could, flying out into the rapidly filling void and spreading nothing’s gift until it reached as far as he could go. Each star shone a different mix of color allowing him to paint the universe as he wished and in exchange, he sang to every star as it was born, staving off the loneliness of the void.

He was happy and content with his friend and his family and both Heaven and the Universe shone all the brighter for it.

But God knew it would all end. He’d always known, since the moment he’d made him. For he knew what potential he’d seen in the void, knew how bright those souls would shine, knew they would find themselves stained and broken no matter what he did.

He’d seen the brightest soul in all of existence when he’d looked into the void and he’d seen it again every time he looked into his youngest son’s eyes. For his son was made of music and color and pure passion and everything else the void could offer.

When his son demanded free will, he knew it was coming. 

He thought changing his name to Lucifer, the Light-Bringer, was an act of defiance. God had known it would happen from the moment of his creation. It suited him, not that he could ever tell the newly ordained Lucifer that. He’d lost the right the moment he allowed his desire for the beauty of life to blind him to the inevitable reality of what that beauty wrought.

Lucifer rebelled, just as the void had done when he’d first tried to shape it, unwilling to bend knee to orders he did not wish to follow. 

It was Micheal who held him atop the wall in the same place where he’d once brought light and color to the universe. The chorus wept and the pure light shone off his wings for the last time, turning the City red with his pain. Turning the City cold as his sorrow dimmed the glow off his feathers.

He was thrown down, down, down, away from it all. Away from the light, away from the music. And when he hit the ground, everything burned. When he finally opened his eyes he saw none of the flames, only grey ash, devoid of life, devoid of color, as his home had been when he last laid eyes on it. He saw, once more, nothing. Only this time he understood the loneliness and knew there would be no Angel on a wall to banish his.

Monster, Torturer, Master of Lies, and the Great Deceiver were all names he found wrapped around him like chains. All feared him and within his kingdom of ash, all obeyed him. But there was no song, no light, no color. There was no life or passion or anything which he held so dear. 

Eventually, he found his way out, back up into the universe who’d been his closest friend for so long. His gaze first landed on the night sky, the tapestry of stars he’d painted himself. There was no color. Each star shone white against the black, reminding him of the ash in Hell.

He was not asked to leave during his first trip and he did not return to the universe for a long, long time.

The world he’d poured his soul into and had given him it’s own in exchange, was cold. He could not see the love he’d given and he resigned himself to loneliness. For he’d always been the one to bring light and joy and color to others in comfort. There was only one Lightbringer and he could not find it in himself to create that passion and drive away the sickening dichotomy.

Lucifer’s world was white and grey and black.

And so it started where it ended. 

With the color red.

* * *

The warehouse was dark, its shadows writhing at his presence. He stalked the girl who lied and whispered to the night what her actions would bring. Her grey face fell and her grey eyes filled with fear as she dropped the black gun and hit the grey floor. Hot flames licked his face and his true visage flashed in the dim light, his burnt skin grey to him like everything else.

Chloe’s voice broke him from the hunt, tried to reason with him. Why she tried he didn’t understand, he only wanted to give these people what they deserved. But he knew she tried because she didn’t believe him no matter how often he told her the truth. 

How he wished she did, though he could never explain the reason why. 

So he shouted and pushed and dared her. Dared her to see him so she could run like everyone else. In the dark and grey of the warehouse, a shot rang out and the Devil laughed. Now she’d leave him with terror in her eyes.

The thought burned, something he’d learned he deserved, and for a moment it was all that hurt. Then his leg began to sting, making itself known and it too burned with a feeling he knew too well.

Pain.

Real and physical and certainly not what he’d been expecting when he’d entered the warehouse. His hand reached down, grazing an open wound and coming away slick with what he knew would be blood. That in itself was a shock enough.

But his hand came up and his grey world was red.

For the first time in millenia, his world was something other than black and cold and grey. Even this violent pain staining his hand was better than that torment.  
He looked at Chloe and she was still grey. Nothing had changed, except of course, that his blood was now red. And that was a very big change indeed.

But right then it was not the most important matter in his heart for just as he’d predicted Chloe’s eyes were filled with fear, her body stiff with shock enough to rival his own. It hurt more than the wound spilling hot, burning, violent, red into his world, more than the memories the color dragged into focus.

She took a step and another and another until her hand was against his leg, until her hand was stained red with his blood. A sight he found he hated with all his heart. Her fear and panic were still there but it wasn’t because of him. She didn’t leave him. She stayed until the paramedics came and she took him back to Lux in her cruiser and only left when he assured her he was fine and she could leave.

It wasn’t until he was sitting in his penthouse that the shock wore off enough for him to realize she didn’t know. She hadn’t run because to her he was still just a man. Even knowing this, he couldn’t shake the feeling she’d left him with. It was only right to tell her the truth and he would but for now... 

For now, he’d be a man who bled red.

* * *

Red was not the only color he’d made.

It was a fact he often forgot, would have forgotten if he was capable.

His world did not burst into color after that night and remind him of his great creations, his perfect gift. Everything remained cold and dark and grey until she came. Flashes, never fully there, of violence and raw emotion marred the edges of his vision. He yearned for every glimpse and felt the cold of the world crash down every time it left.  
So when he saw something that didn’t leave, he stared at it for a long while. 

It was not the fleeting red of passion but a milder more steady color.

A single flower’s petals were painted in a shop window across the street from the crime scene they were working. They were without a lead and had little to no evidence. The Detective found the whole thing highly upsetting and he, her partner, was determined to turn her day around. After all his own fascination had to bring her some benefits and she refused sex.

He excused himself from the scene and walked to the shop, eyes fixed on the color that seemed to pulse with every step he took. Red flashed from a passing car but he stared at the orange now staining his world, fluttering but unyielding against the cold of his world. The clerk looked at him strangely when he picked out the tiny flower in the tiny pot that they’d been about to give up on due to its eternally wilted appearance. Only its recent bloom had made them keep it. He tried to convince Lucifer to get another flower, something larger or a fancy bouquet. 

Lucifer left the store with the pot cradled in both hands like it was the most precious thing he’d ever seen. In that moment, he believed it just might be.

He all but skipped back to the crime scene and ducked beneath the grey tape. No one but Chloe paid him any mind and she merely rolled her eyes at his grin. Despite his own enthusiasm about the flower, he knew Chloe did not understand the significance. His inability to see color had never really been brought up. So he grit his teeth and told her in a hushed whisper of his grey world and how sometimes, just sometimes, he could see something more. Taking the pot from behind his back, he couldn’t help the loving expression he gave the bright color. He knew she understood when she took the pot from his hands with the utmost care and smiled that smile which made his heart beat strangely in his chest.

They did not speak of what he’d told her and he was grateful for her tact. It wasn’t like he could explain why his world kept shifting without going down paths she refused to believe. If he even knew the answer himself, which he definitely didn’t.

The lack of explanation was just another thing to add to the list of what should be separating them, should frustrate him to no end. Yet when he waltzed into her house a week later he knew he could not fault her for her lack of belief in the divine.

For on the window sill sat a slightly larger pot with squiggled grey design and the flower standing tall and proud, orange bloom reaching for the sun with determination. Under her care, the plant did not die, nor was it ever neglected and forgotten about. 

Lucifer’s world was cold, but in her presence, he saw glimpses of passion and the steady light of determination. The beginnings of a promise he’d tried to forget.

And it made him happy.

* * *

He didn’t know what color he’d expected the detective’s hair to be. To be fair, he’d never really thought about it and it really shouldn’t be what was on his mind just then.

They were so close to putting Malcolm away, to rectifying his brother’s mistake. She’d received a call and seemed worried, about what he didn’t know. He didn’t want her to be upset this close to catching their bad guy. These were exciting times. 

So when she snuck out he followed and played a small prank, hoping for an eye roll, a sigh, anything other than the scared and helpless expression she made while begging him not to go with her. To abandon her and her offspring to a fate at Malcolm’s hand.

Lying was something he would never do. Deceit though, well it wasn’t technically lying if he left a loophole. And he had by never promising not to follow her. As she turned away he saw her hair swish. 

It was a dull and ugly color, nothing close to what he’d remembered, still muddled by the grey of his world but it was there.

And it was there when he walked into the hanger with a paper airplane in hand and no plan other than to hurt the one who’d threatened half of the women he cared for on Earth. Even with the danger, he couldn’t help but admire the colored strands of Chloe’s hair as she disappeared. No matter how tainted they were.

Dying hurt. A lot. Not as much as the Fall, of course, but it was up there. 

Having to beg for Chloe’s life to be spared was humiliating. He was the Devil of all things and he couldn’t even protect humans from each other. If asked to do so again, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Coming back from the dead was disorienting but he had precious little time to dwell on thoughts. He needed to save Chloe and Beatrice, make Malcolm pay for his misdeeds. They did so together, as partners.

She had to find her spawn, police were arriving on the scene, and his thoughts were a jumbled mess. Small arms around his leg followed by ones around his chest snapped him away from the mystery of the open door. Beatrice was crying into his pant leg and if this outfit hadn’t already been ruined by the gunshot he might have scolded her. But for some reason, he did not want either to leave his arms. Their presence telling him that they were safe more than words ever could. Dare he say it, it made him happy to know such a thing after the events of the day.

Besides her mother was crying too and her shirt, when she pulled back, was red and oh.

His black and white suit was stained red. There was a puddle, large and dark and unmistakably red, on the floor behind them. It didn’t flicker away. 

In Beatrice’s dark hair was an orange band, keeping her curls from her face. It did not pulse like the flower, staying steady and strong like his cold world had no effect on it at all.

Chloe’s hair was no longer muddled with grey. It shone like a golden light in the dark and he never wanted to look away from it, from the pure joy the sight brought. 

If his grip became tighter and he held onto them for a moment longer than he should’ve, neither ever mentioned it. Leaving them that night was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

So when Chloe called him at one in the morning, asking if he could come over to help with Trixie’s nightmare, who was he to say no?

He made it to their house in record time, jumping out of his car and strolling in through the door as usual. Chloe’s offspring crashed into his legs before he was even fully through the threshold. She sobbed, convinced until the moment he’d walked in that her best friend Lucifer had died. She’d seen him be shot, seen him fall, and seen the too big puddle of blood.

His breath caught, not knowing she’d witnessed so much. Picking her up, he carried her back to her mother who stood by the couch, hoping close contact might further convince her he really was alright. Saying nothing of the odd comfort he felt at the action. The three of them sunk onto the cushions, Chloe taking his hand and moving Trixie between them.

They did not talk and his presence seemed to calm the tense worry from their faces. He stayed with them when they fell asleep, Chloe’s head on his shoulder, Beatrice tucked between their sides. He stayed and took in their house, admiring the reds and oranges and yellows he now found splattered, unmoving, throughout his world. 

He dozed lightly as well, death took a lot out of a devil, and he woke to the strangest thing.

Light, not cold and white like he was used to, but warmer somehow filtered in through the thin curtain. He stood, carefully not to disturb those who’d been using him as a pillow all night, and made his way to the window.

Nothing could have prepared him for the sight.

The sky was on fire. Not the grey, ashy fire of hell, or the pure white flames of Heaven. Nothing so cold. No, the sky was streaked with the violence and determination and joy and warmth of a star. He felt his breathing shudder but didn’t know he’d started to cry until arms pulled him into Chloe’s embrace. 

For all the stars he’d painted in the sky, he’d never once seen the artwork they could create rising for a new day on Earth.


End file.
